


you be the moon, i'll be the earth

by arahir



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Dark, Dubious Consent, M/M, Pining Keith (Voltron), Pining Kuron (Voltron), Pining Shiro (Voltron), Rough Sex, Self-Sacrifice, choking but not the fun kind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2018-12-15 12:11:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11805753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arahir/pseuds/arahir
Summary: 2. Kuron is Kuro reformed. But not quite.Shiro would leave. Shiro would walk out, steal a pod from the hangar bay, never come within a sector of this ship, of this boy again.But he’s not Shiro.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Kuron falls in love with Keith who loves the real Shiro and sacrifices himself to save Keith in battle.
>
>> _You’re not him,_ Keith thinks, and pushes a hand against the dull throb behind his eyes. It’s like living with a constant sense of déjà vu, this thing walking around wearing Shiro’s skin, trailing an afterimage of who he isn’t everywhere he goes.

“What’s with you, lately?”

It throws Keith, in part because of who’s asking, in part because of why. The planet they’re orbiting is obsidian black, matte-dark against the stars, haloed in the light of its nearby star. The high contrast is giving him a headache—they’ve been here for days, and it’s nothing but more of the same. Waiting for Lotor to make a move, waiting for something to give.

“What do you mean?” he asks without looking away from the window. He’s too tired to remind himself not to flinch when he feels a hand on his shoulder. Shiro’s touch is on the wrong side of familiar as he turns Keith to face him.

“Keith...” The smile is wrong. The lines around his eyes, the shade of his hair, the cadence of his voice, _everything_ —

 _You’re not him,_ Keith thinks, and pushes a hand against the dull throb behind his eyes. It’s like living with a constant sense of déjà vu, this thing walking around wearing Shiro’s skin, trailing an afterimage of who he isn’t everywhere he goes.

The concern in his eyes though—that’s real, and Keith’s too conditioned to it to write him off or push him away.

“I’ll be ok,” he says. “Just tired.”

Shiro frowns. “You’ve said that before—“

“I know,” Keith says, and smiles. “But I mean it,” and he does. If this is the version of Shiro he’s getting, he’s not going to let him go. Not until he can figure this out, and the rest of the team doesn’t even have a clue yet. They need him— _Keith_ needs him.

And he’s so tired.

Keith leaves him there, tries to meter his steps to something less than a run, because he can feel that foreign gaze follow him until he’s out of sight.

It’s constant. Shiro’s eyes find him in every room, seek him out and stick to him, until Keith’s so used to the feeling of being watched that the hair on the back of his neck never goes down. It’s cruel, to finally be seen, to finally be wanted, but to be wanted by _this_.

It feels like half his life has been spent following those shoulders. Since the day they met, that’s all he’s wanted. Those eyes on him, like _this_ , like he’s not just something valued but something needed. That’s how this Shiro looks at him—the same way he’s looked at Shiro three, four years running now, all hopeless and craving.

If Shiro noticed, he never let on.

There’s no way he didn’t know, Keith thinks now, because this is _haunting_ him. It’s shocking how unwelcome it is, like the attention of a stranger, but worse somehow. Worse, because he he’s always a breath from meeting those eyes, from pressing into that touch, and he’s starting to lose himself in this.

 

-

 

It takes a month for him to consider it. A month of waiting for something to give—waiting for some sign his Shiro is still out there, waiting for the gaze on his back to go cold or stray.

(There’s no sign, and it never does.)

Keith goes to his room after dark. Just to talk, he tells himself, to test out the edges of this thing he wants to believe is real, but isn’t.

 _That’s not him_ , he reminds himself as he steps in the door. It’s dark in Shiro’s room, and it doesn’t quite smell like him anymore. This thing doesn’t have a smell at all.

 _Synthetic,_ he thinks, staring at the body in the bed.

Shiro’s only half-covered by the blanket and comes awake at the sound Keith lets his steps make. He sits up, blinking. “Keith?” His voice is sleep rough, and hopeful, and _wrong_. It’s visceral, something like panic pounding through his gut, adrenaline spiking.

“You’re not him,” Keith says, before he can think of anything else, before he can stop himself.

The thing in the bed takes a sharp breath. It’s a pained sound, and even though it’s dark, Keith can see his eyes go wide. Its mouth opens, but no words come out, and it’s that hesitation, that pause that tells Keith he _knows_. This thing—it knows what it isn’t.

“What—what do you—?“ it starts, staring at Keith still. It’s always _staring_ and it’s driving him to the edge of something.

“You’re not him,” Keith repeats as he approaches the bed, because it’s important. That distance is everything, and he’s sure now—it’s not Shiro, and it never was. He might as well have never left the cockpit of the Black Lion after the battle, because he has nothing more now than he had in that moment of loss.

It’s eyes are still wide and hurt, but it doesn’t move away, even when Keith is a foot and inches from breathing its air. The closer Keith gets the more recognizable that gleam in its eyes is—something hungry, something _wanting._

That’s what does it. That’s all it takes. “He never looked at me like that,” Keith whispers, and sinks to his knees, burying his face the hollow of its neck.

The arms that come up around his back are too tight, and the grip is all wrong, but it’s all he has. They don’t talk about it; they don’t say anything. Keith presses his face into warm skin and tries to breathe past the unfamiliar smell of it—

 _It_ , because this isn’t Shiro, this _isn’t him_.

He beats that fact like a mantra into his head. It’s a hug. It’s only a hug. That’s what Keith tells himself, even as he lets the arms pull him up onto the bed and roll him onto his back. The body presses him into the mattress, hot and heavy. It shifts against Keith in a little needful, stuttering movement, and there are lips against his neck, soft and dry—

“No,” Keith mutters, and flinches away.

The body above him stills and pulls away. He has to make a conscious effort to meet its eyes, because those are the worst part of whatever this is. That’s what he noticed first when he pulled it out of the Galra ship—they’re too wide, too dark, and now that it’s inches away he can see there’s something off about the pupils. The way they expand and contract, like the eyes of a bird.

“I can’t. You’re not—“

It rolls off him, but doesn’t go far, pulling Keith back into its arms in a loose hug, so Keith can rest his head on one bicep. It _sighs_ , and it’s a sound like Shiro would make in a calm moment after a long day at the Garrison, somewhere between content and tired.

They stay like, sharing the same space and heat and nothing more.

Keith’s at the edge of sleep when it speaks.

“I don’t know where he is,” it says, painfully soft. “I’m sorry. I told you everything.” It repositions him, pulling him in tighter and pushing its face into Keith’s hair. When it speaks again, it’s almost too quiet to hear. “At least, I thought I had.”

It’s not the first time he’s slept in Shiro’s bed, but it’s the first time he’s had arms around him and lips against his neck.

It’s the first solid night’s sleep he’s had since they lost Shiro—and the last.

 

-

 

In the morning, Lotor is finally spotted.

They fight about it, because everything that was easy with Shiro before is impossible now. It gets heated enough that the rest of the team evacuates the bridge to give them a moment of privacy, accepting that two leaders is going to cause some friction, or trying to ignore the growing rift.

Keith tries not to yell, but he knows how he sounds. “This might be our chance to track him down—“

“Keith.” It doesn’t even look at him. It’s dismissive, but Keith knows the reason it can’t meet Keith’s gaze, knows it like the back of his hand by now.

“We need to do this,” Keith says. “The longer we leave him out there, the more time he has to plan.”

It turns to him, finally. “What if it’s a trap?”

“Then I’ll find a way through it. We both will. We can’t lose this chance,” Keith tries.

It works. The thing wearing Shiro’s skin closes his eyes, accepting, and it’s getting better at being what Shiro was because the expression sends a little pang through Keith’s chest.

Their plan is solid, and the team isn’t exactly a well-oiled machine yet, but they’re close. There’s no reason to think it’ll go as badly as it does, but within seconds of exiting the wormhole they’re in one of the worst firefights they’ve seen; it only gets worse from there.

It’s like Lotor can see five steps ahead. Every move they make gets countered, until the tables flip and they’re running scared.

From that moment on, they’re hunted. It’s worse than when Zarkon was tracking them because Lotor isn’t after the Black Lion—he’s after _them._ It’s like they can’t get ahead, no matter what, and within a week they’re all running on fumes.

“We can’t keep this up,” Keith says, when it’s him and Shiro on the bridge—not Shiro, _not Shiro._

It won’t meet his eyes. “I know."

“If it’s not the lions, how is he tracking us this time? It doesn’t make any sense.” Keith scrubs a hand through his lank hair. “Maybe he’s got us bugged,” he laughs without humor.

The thing goes still, its breath catching.

“Shiro?” Keith steps closer. It doesn’t look up at his approach; it’s staring at the floor like it can see right through it.

Keith touches its shoulder, but it flinches away—

It’s a shock. Shiro’s never balked at his touch, in any version of himself, and there’s something off suddenly, something wrong _._

“Shiro—“

It looks at him, finally. It’s wearing that agonizing-soft smile that the real Shiro never did, its eyes hued blue with the ambient light of the ship and its pupils blown wide. “I’m fine,” it says.  “Just tired.”

They’re his own words thrown back at him, but there’s nothing mocking in it. Everything about him, Keith realizes, is painfully genuine, and it is a _him_ —he’s not Shiro, but he’s someone, and the way he looks at Keith—

The realization hits him like a physical blow. He’s _wanted,_ and Keith could have this, if he asked for it, if he wanted it.

He does.

Keith moves into his space, presses his lips against the corner of that smile.

His lips are still soft and dry, but they open under Keith’s without hesitation. There’s a hand on his hip and another buried in his hair, pulling him in closer. There’s something desperate in it, something _biting._

Keith shocks himself with a moan that’s embarrassingly loud in the quiet. The lips under his still, and then he’s being shoved away, so hard he has to catch himself against one of the control panels so he doesn’t fall.

They’re both breathing hard, staring at each other from the space.

Shiro closes his eyes. “I’m sorry. I—we can’t.”

The rejection tears through him. _Not Shiro, not Shiro_ , he reminds himself, but it still _hurts_ , and he has to leave, he has to get out before he begs. He turns away and tries to walk-not-run off the bridge. His stomach is lead.  
  
“Keith. I’m sorry.”

He pauses, but only for a moment. He can’t think around the shock of it yet, of letting himself want something, finally—of watching it leap back out of reach. It feels like a joke. This whole thing—getting this _shade_ back instead of Shiro, living with it for months, and what if Shiro is dead? What if he missed his chance to find him? What if this is it?

And it doesn’t even want him.

 

-

 

He has exactly three hours to feel bad about it. Three hours to press the heels of his palms into his eyes until they’re dry again, three hours to take deep breaths, three hours to find his way around and past it— _you always do_ , he tells himself. _You always do._

The blaring alarms shake him to fully allert in an instant.

“He found us,” Coran says over the intercom, sounding as tired as they all feel.

They gather on the bridge, and it’s still night-cycle blue—the Galra fleet out the window looks surreal in that twilight, like they’re watching a movie. They’re too tired for the usual _how’d he find us_ conversation. He’s running them to ground, but they’re not quite at the crash point yet.

Allura steps up to the podium. There’s a little quiver in her voice when she speaks, and it’s pure exhaustion. “I’m going to try another wormhole—“

“Wait, where’s Shiro?” Lance asks.

He’s not on the bridge.

It’s cold water down Keith’s spine. They look around the room, like he’s going to pop up from behind a chair. Keith fights that sense of déjà vu, an image of the empty cockpit of the Black Lion floating behind his eyes.

Allura tries to hail him over the intercom, but he doesn’t respond, and they don’t have time. Keith can’t organize his thoughts past that worry, past what they need to do _right now_ —

“The hangar bay is open!” Coran shouts.

It starts to click into place in the back of his mind, one piece at a time. Keith steadies himself on the nearest chair, trying to calculate if he can make it to the Black Lion in time or if there’s some other option, some other way to get to Shiro before he loses him again—

Shiro’s face appears up on the overhead display. He’s in the Galra bird they picked him up in. They held on to it as a fail safe, a just-in-case. His image hangs there in real time, looking across the bridge, and Keith knows when Shiro finds him; his eyes go soft.

Keith feels that gaze like a weight around his neck, but he makes himself meet it head on.

“What are you doing, buddy?” Lance asks, before Keith can gather his thoughts.

Shiro smiles, and it’s just for Keith. “I figured out how they’re tracking us.”

_No._

“Come back to the ship,” Keith says, trying to keep voice steady and failing. “We’ll figure it out—“

“You were wrong, you know,” Shiro cuts him off, and he’s still smiling, painfully soft.  “He does look at you like that—he’s just had more practice hiding it than I have.”

Keith closes his eyes.

“I’m sorry. I hope you find him,” Shiro says, and that’s it.

He knows when the feed blinks off by the movement around him. Someone shouts, and someone else is asking him what to do, but he doesn’t know. It’s too much to process at once. They don’t have time to do anything else; the explosion that lights up the windows is massive enough that he can see the flash of it, even through his closed lids.

It’s the distraction they need, and at least someone is keeping it together because Allura and Coran don’t waste a second before they open a wormhole—and just like that, it’s over and they’re hanging alone in empty space.

“Wait—what...?” Hunk asks. “Was that really—“

“He’s _gone_ ,” Lance says, and it’s a pitch perfect repeat of the the last time this happened.

It’s like he never left the cockpit of the Black Lion, like everything since that battle has been a dream where he loses over and over again. He’s nauseous with the realization.

“Keith?” Pidge says his name like a question.

“That wasn’t Shiro,” he hears himself say, distantly. “It was never Shiro.”

And he can almost make himself believe it.

 

_you be the moon, i'll be the earth, and when we burst—_

_start over, oh darling. begin again._

-purity ring, _[begin again](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVDpgPR4ffc)_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [insp](http://urumiya.tumblr.com/post/163994403652/so-this-episode-broke-my-heart-and-then-i-broke-it).
> 
> I take requests/prompts (even if they rip my heart out, thanks!) on [tumblr](http://arahir.tumblr.com)!


	2. not the moon, not even a star

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kuron is Kuro reformed. But not quite.
>
>> Shiro would leave. Shiro would walk out, steal a pod from the hangar bay, never come within a sector of this ship, of this boy again. 
>> 
>> But he’s not Shiro.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This is a dark mirror to the previous chapter. I wrote it immediately after the first, back after season 3 aired, but never worked up the mood to post it. Please look at the updated tags. It's definitely as dark as I'll ever get and pretty far from the norm for me!! Just please, please, exercise caution and feel free to give this a pass if an unhealthy relationship or minor sexual violence will squick you out. Also brief mentions of unrequited, unacted on, unspoken of KL from Lance's pov.

The boy is beautiful.

In the starlight on the bridge, he’s all long lines and soft skin and hair so dark it’s almost a shadow. The shoulder under his hand is solid and warm; all the memories he has of this are nothing compared to the real thing. They fall away, one by one.

“I’m proud of you,” he says, and smiles. It misses the mark somehow. He’s not what the boy thinks he is. He hasn’t been, not since he fought his way off the Galra ship he woke up on. He knows what he saw there and why he was allowed to escape. The Galra made him, and he shouldn’t be here.

That’s what sets him apart. He’s selfish.

The boy might suspect. There’s still something sad in his eyes as he looks away, denying the praise, but he’s pliant under the metal hand and it’s easy to turn him back and pull him in, to let the hand slide around his neck. The boy makes a sound against his lips, one that vibrates up his throat, right where the metal fingers are pressed in.

The long, pale column of muscle and skin is a point of obsession—he keeps his fingers wrapped around the back of the boy's as he breaks away and uses the pressure to push the boy ahead of him, down the dark hallways to their room.

Inside the door, he pauses. The boy eyes him over his shoulder, an arm's length distant, questioning.

He doesn't know how to proceed because he doesn’t want to hurt. He wants to possess, not damage, but the line between those two ends is blurred and entangled and he can’t pull them apart in his mind. That’s what they wanted, he tells himself. That’s why he’s there. Leave, and save them. That’s what _he_ would do.

But he knows what he isn’t.

The boy turns toward him in full, shrugging off his jacket and gripping the hand around his neck in a loose hold; not moving it, not breaking away, but holding him there.

He looks up through his bangs, and says with painful, beseeching softness, “Shiro.”

The boy wants him. The boy missed him. Memories flood his mind—hips under his hands, an open mouth, damp hair, the way the boy moves and arches, and how the pitch of his breath changes when he's close.

Everything hinges on that moment.

Shiro would leave. Shiro would walk out, steal a pod from the hangar bay, never come within a sector of this ship and this boy again.

But he’s not Shiro.

 

* * *

 

 

Keith leans into it. The hand resting around his neck, the thumb pushing up against his jaw, bowing his head back. Their clothes are discarded on the floor in a careful pile. Shiro stripped him like he was unwrapping something precious, something delicate—but Keith isn't.

"You're so beautiful," Shiro says there, right against the skin of his jaw. It sends a shudder through Keith. Shiro’s voice is heavy, his hands are heavy; there’s an intensity to his presence that Keith isn't used to.

It’s absence, he tells himself. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and they were already in love.

Shiro’s hands are a force. He uses them like he’s trying to re-learn all of Keith’s edges. He slides them down Keith’s ribs, pressing his thumbs in hard enough to count the bones through his skin. Without warning, he turns Keith over and bends him back for another kiss, making the arch deeper than it needs to be, almost indulging in the way Keith can move.

When they part, he keeps his hand around Keith’s neck in a loose hold for a long, indistinct moment before he lets go, trailing his fingers down the ridge of Keith’s spine in a deliberate, foreign way.

Keith realizes he’s shaking.

Usually, Shiro takes his time and indulges, but Keith doesn’t have time to take a breath before he feels wet fingers at his entrance—the metal ones, and they’re cold. He can't hide the full body flinch. Shiro doesn't use that hand—not since Kerberos, but Shiro smooths the other down Keith's hip, calming and gripping.

"It's ok," he whispers, though there's no reason it wouldn't be, and starts opening him up. He presses in, so slow it's agonizing, but Keith's still trembling and it's not all desire yet. There's something visceral in it. Adrenaline, he realizes. The adrenaline singing through his veins is telling him to run, but it's Shiro. It's Shiro, and everything he’s missed and mourned and wanted for more than his share of time. Keith presses back against his fingers, hard and deliberate, and it's not quite enough until—

Pleasure spikes up his spine. He moans and shudders and Shiro seizes on it, bending low over his back and rubbing against him until he’s shaking in earnest, until he can’t catch his breath.

"Good boy," Shiro says against the blade of his shoulder, with a scrape of teeth that isn't anything like a kiss but has Keith thrusting on open air. He needs friction, anything—he's going to beg if Shiro doesn't do something.

He opens his mouth on a plea, but it's a mistake because that's the moment Shiro pulls his fingers out and the slide, the emptiness has him keening like something only part human.

Shiro's breaths are audible behind him. He smooths his hands down Keith’s sides again, drawing lines of sweat to his hips where they settle over the jut of bone and grip tight, holding him steady against the solid heat at his entrance.

It’s been so long and he wants it so much, but somehow this is still too fast. He’s used to time and care and Shiro pulling apart his composure over hours. He doesn't rush, not even after Kerberos when they were both desperate for a moment together.

“Wait—“

It's the last clear thought he has. Shiro presses inside him in one deep thrust, rocking against him in a line of white-hot heat that has him gasping for air. Shiro still hasn't touched him, but the thought is so distant he can't focus on it, can't think past the insistent drag, in and out, and the burn. It’s slow but hard like Shiro’s trying to be gentle and can’t quite manage it over his own desire.

"Are you ok?" Shiro asks, voice shaking, but it’s not really a question. He’s not waiting.

Keith nods, conditioned to it. Shiro groans, between pleased and something strange, almost frustrated. He lays the metal hand high on Keith’s spine, pressing down between his shoulder blades until Keith can't hold himself up against the weight of it and his arms buckle. The hand slides to his hair, threading in it and pushing Keith’s head into the mattress so he’s gasping for breath against the sheets. It's new and strange, but he’s a quick study and he can find desire in this, too.

Shiro stays there, pressing in and down, breathing hard, like he’s trying to center himself. It’s agonizing, but only for a moment. He pulls out and slams back in, right against the spot that Keith's vision sparking at the edges. It’s on the right side of too much; the pit of his stomach seizes up half in nerves, half in pleasure, swinging back between the two extremes, further and further each time until he’s not sure if he needs to push Shiro off or beg him for more.

But Shiro’s not holding anything back. The hand against his scalp is shaking and the hand on his hip is pressed so tight his skin is going numb under it. It’s good, but Shiro still hasn’t touched him and he needs friction, he needs something more than the bare sheets, he needs _touch_ —

Shiro pauses, pulling his hand from Keith’s hair and grabbing the hand Keith was inching under his torso with bruising strength, bending low over his back.

“No.”

The word is a growl, right against his ear. Shiro splays his hand against the mattress, twining metal fingers with Keith’s and pressing down until he’s pinned half spread-eagle. The grip is hot, and he has to blink the sweat out of his eyes and glance down to convince himself it’s not glowing.

"Shiro—what—“

That’s as far as he gets. It’s the wrong thing to say.

It sets something off in Shiro, and suddenly the grip on Keith’s hand and hips is painful. Keith has to hold the sheets with his free hand to keep from doing something he’ll regret. Shiro’s rhythm falls away to desperate, chaotic thrusts that Keith can’t meet, can’t think around, and his breath is hot against the back of Keith’s neck. It doesn’t sound right. It doesn’t sound like Shiro—it barely sounds human at all because there’s something ravenous in the way he’s moving. It sends another spike of adrenaline shivering through Keith and settling low in his stomach, almost like pleasure. Almost.

It’s Shiro, he reminds himself through the haze. It’s just Shiro, and absence, and need.

“You’re beautiful,” he hears Shiro say in a guttural whisper. Beautiful. Shiro's never called him that. He has a hundred pet names for Keith, but never beautiful.

The teeth against his neck stop all thought. Shiro bites down, hard, on the edge of breaking the skin, and thrusts in like he can't get deep enough. There’s nothing affectionate in it—just teeth and lust, and it’s a shock, but it’s enough. It's more than enough. It sends him so far over the edge he's left spinning in freefall for a moment.

When he comes back to himself, Shiro is still buried inside him, still moving in the same erratic slide, but it’s only a moment before he shudders and Keith can feel Shiro pulse inside of him. He doesn’t make a sound as he comes—a low, wordless gasp, and nothing. 

Shiro pulls back enough to press a kiss to Keith's neck, right over the bite mark, nosing against his skin almost in a nuzzle—but he doesn't say Keith's name. Not once.

He's used to a litany. He's used to Shiro repeating his name like he's forgotten how to say anything else. It used to embarrass him, but the silence is worse. Everything about it is a shade off right. Something insistent scratches at the edge of Keith’s mind even through the haze of the afterglow, but then Shiro pulls out and pushes Keith onto his back.

All his apprehension falls away. There's wonder in Shiro’s eyes. It's a look he knows by heart, a look he lost himself to years back.

His fingers smart where Shiro had him in a death grip, but he takes Shiro’s metal hand and settles it over his chest so they're metal to skin and Shiro can feel his heart racing and his breath still surging. Shiro’s eyes close, like he's listening.

Somehow, that moment is better than anything else. Better than pulling Shiro from the Galra fighter, better than the hot ache settling into his hips, better than Shiro’s lips and teeth against his neck. It’s what he was waiting for.

When Shiro opens his eyes, he zeroes in on Keith's hand over his. The heat of a forming bruise already obvious along the lines the metal fingers pressed into him. Shiro never touches him with that hand—never used to, at least, and he doesn’t know what that change means _._

Shiro pulls the hand to his mouth, eyes soft.

“Sorry.” He presses a kiss against the sore knuckles, dragging his lips over them. Keith is still coming down, but this is the Shiro he remembers. He smiles and presses his own kiss to Shiro’s shoulder in wordless reassurance. There are months where he’d have given anything to touch Shiro and be touched again. It’s new, but it’s Shiro, and it's all right. 

 

* * *

 

 

It's not, after all. 

He gets a look at himself in the mirror the next morning and has a moment of cold-sweat panic at what he sees. There’s blue stippled down his sides and around his wrists and a red-rimmed bite on his neck, mostly hidden by the hair. It’s—a lot.

It’s a lot, from someone who usually treats Keith like glass.

The dips between his knuckles and the edges of his fingers on his right hand are dark. It makes him look skeletal. He flexes the hand in front of the mirror, turning it over, but he can’t parse his own thoughts or decide how he should feel.

Shiro steps into the bathroom behind him. He frowns at Keith’s reflection in the mirror, seeing what Keith sees, but then he steps forward and presses a kiss against the bite on Keith’s neck and sets a hand against the fingerprints on his hip.

He doesn’t apologize, and Keith doesn’t ask. They never talk about it.

That’s where the slide starts.

 

* * *

 

 

Lance can pinpoint with dead accuracy the exact moment he knows he’s fucked.

They’re talking tactics over a screen on the bridge. Keith leans across to tap something, and Lance only notices because he’s the one closest to him—only sees the mark because it’s inches from his nose for a long, _long_ moment. It still takes him a second to comprehend what he’s seeing.

It’s the impression of teeth against the back of Keith’s neck, red and fresh, mostly hidden by his dark hair,

His mind makes three leaps in that moment because a bite on the back of someone’s neck is open to exactly one interpretation. Keith got down, and Keith got down with someone on the ship. Keith got down with someone on the ship, and whoever it was had access to the back of his neck while they were doing it. That limits the list substantially, though it wasn’t long to begin with.

It’s Shiro. It has to be Shiro, but Lance's mind keeps having to double back around to the realization that Keith qualifies as an object of desire at all.

His neck is still inches away.

Keith straightens up and steps away, but Lance can’t pry his eyes from that spot.

All the rest of that day, it haunts him. At first, he tries to not imagine it, but he loses that fight when Shiro puts a hand on Keith’s shoulder all easy and casual. It’s something they’ve done in front of everyone a hundred times, but the hand dwarfs Keith to a degree that should be funny.

It's not.

Lance lies awake that night, pillow clutched in both hands, staring at the ceiling in wide-eyed horror. Keith’s room is literally feet away, and if Lance stepped out into the hallway right then, would he hear them? No force in the universe could make him walk out and check, but he can’t stop thinking about it.

The next morning he has to talk himself down from a three-part analysis of whether Keith is walking funny. It’s ruining his life and it hasn't been a day.

How long? he wonders. Has this been it, right from the start? It seems ridiculous, that there would be this undertow to everything they’ve been through together, this secondary layer of experience meant just for them. Keith and Shiro, going into battle thinking they might lose each other. Keith and Shiro, trying to steal a private moment between it all. Keith and Shiro, sharing glances, speaking volumes, right in front of them the entire time.

Keith and Shiro.

It’s jealousy. That’s what he realizes, a week in. He’s jealous of what they have. He wants it, but he wants—

He doesn’t know what he wants. Not really. Not for days.

Not until Keith steps onto the bridge in his dark t-shirt and black pants, exactly the same as he’s looked every day since they got here. His hair is damp from his time on the training deck, but it’s not vaguely gross like it should be. As Lance watches, he reaches up to untie his hair with long, deft fingers. The muscles on his arms stand out, lithe and defined, the motion exposes a pale strip of stomach and abs.

 _Don’t look_ , he tells himself, but it’s futile. Everything about this is futile—has been, from the start. There’s no place for him in this.

There’s a bruise, right along Keith’s hip.  It’s only visible for an instant, but that’s it. That’s the moment he knows he’s not going to be able to dig himself out of it, because he’s not just jealous. He doesn't want something like what Shiro has with Keith.

He wants what Shiro has.

 

* * *

 

 

They fight, sometimes, Lance notices. The whole team notices.

That’s new. The calls Shiro makes are erratic and they watch Keith make the decision of whether or not to argue on a case-by-case basis. He defers, almost always.

Almost.

“If we don’t do this now, when are we? When will we have another chance?” It's about Lotor, again. Keith has his eye on the prize, always.

Shiro has his arms folded. He isn’t even looking at Keith. “It’s reckless—“

“When won’t it be?” Keith isn’t arguing so much as pleading. There’s no place for the rest of the team to step into this argument. Usually, Keith and Shiro have them in private, but it's starting to bleed over. Lance shares a look with Pidge and Hunk. “I can go,” Keith continues. “I can scout it out. We don’t risk anything that way.”

Shiro turns to him, finally, but it’s so abrupt it has half the room flinching back.

“No, no risk—just you. You’re right, Keith. That’s an acceptable loss.” It’s—sarcasm. Deadpan, desert-dry sarcasm. There’s a thread of something else in it, something dark that has Keith’s eyes go wide, and a little hurt.

The longing that’s now Lance’s ever-present companion taps on his shoulder, but he shakes it off. Wrong time, wrong place—as if there’s ever going to be a right one.

“I didn’t mean—“

Shiro takes a step forward into his space. “Is that acceptable? Is it acceptable if you get hurt? Get captured?“

The tone is wrong. Not comforting, not kind, but almost threatening. It’s off-putting in the worst way. Allura puts up a hand and steps forward like she might intervene, but Lance beats her to the punch because the look on Keith’s face is devastating.

“Shiro, man—“

Shiro rounds on him. “What?”

It’s biting. Lance—shakes his head. It's shameful later how fast he backed down, but Keith’s eyes are still fastened to Shiro like he’s a guiding star. It isn’t right. There’s something off.

No one else is willing to step into the argument, and once the fight goes out of the room, it goes out of Shiro. He scrubs a hand through his hair and sighs. “Keith...” He sighs. “We can discuss it later.”

Keith takes the loss and walks out.

 

* * *

 

 

It slides and slides.

They fight, sometimes. After the blowup, they don't see each other for hours. Keith isn't avoiding Shiro on purpose, but it's easier to take out his frustration on a training drone than duke it out with Shiro in front of the entire team.

The thought of their expressions carries Keith through the rest of the training sequence and part of another. He doesn't stop until he feels eyes on him; he knows who it is before he turns.

Shiro doesn't say anything. He's leaned against the wall by the door, watching, and it's a look Keith feels crawl up his spine. Not adoring, not wondrous, but pure hunger. His hips ache from that look, in the sweetest way. Even if they disagree, even if they fight, they still have that.

He goes to Shiro and lets Shiro pull him in for a kiss with both hands tight to his ass in a solid grind he doesn't work up to. It's up to Keith to catch up to it, as is their new normal. Shiro’s already hard and Keith can't decide if it's flattering or frightening.

Shiro pulls away an inch. “You're hot,” he says, voice wet from the kiss, and Keith doesn't know if it's a comment on the fact that he's fresh off an hour of exercise and disgusting or that Shiro got hard watching him.

Keith wraps both arms around Shiro’s neck, trying to gain leverage against Shiro’s hands, but he’s immobilized. It’s odd—but everything between them is now. He keeps trying to find his feet in what they have, but Shiro makes it hard. He has Keith pressed up against his front and there’s no friction to it, no motion, like he wants to crush more than he wants to get off.

Keith's pressing his hands against Shiro’s shoulders and pulling away from the kiss before he realizes it. “Shiro—”

Shiro groans, chasing his lips, rolling his hips, but he lets go. His hands settle on Keith's shoulders with deliberate care, like if he doesn’t make himself keep that distance, he’ll end up on the floor with Keith’s legs around his waist, rutting and biting marks into Keith’s neck.

He has. Two days before, on the floor of their bathroom, and the marks are still visible over Keith's chest and shoulders and the inside of his thighs. It’s not bad, but it’s more and different and constant. There’s a growing frustration between them—the fights and making up like this, a cycle Keith can't shake them out of. It’s running him ragged. Nothing he does is right in Shiro’s eyes, the way it never has been. Nothing is enough.

Not even this.

Shiro drags him to their room and he doesn’t give Keith time to get his own clothes off. He tears at them like they’re a personal offense and then fixates on Keith’s neck. Keith can’t protest with a thigh between his legs. Shiro grips his neck with both hands, delicate, sucking a mark against his collarbone while Keith tries to move against his leg enough to find pleasure in it.

When Shiro finally pulls away, he stops to admire his work. He’s still clothed, fully. He leaves his metal hand wrapped around Keith’s neck in a loose hold and then reorients so he can roll his hips against Keith, hard. He repeats the motion, pulling a cry out of Keith that he doesn’t expect.

“Good?” Shiro asks, and does it again. It shouldn’t be. Rough cloth isn’t a mouth, and it isn’t skin. It burns, but he’s newly conditioned to find appeal in this.

Before he can answer, the hand tightens around his throat, and he couldn’t speak if he tried, but he nods against it and Shiro smiles. He lets his left hand drag down Keith’s chest and abs and lower, gripping him tight.

Keith thrusts into the hold weakly, stars starting to glitter at the edge of his vision. It’s hard to get a full breath and he’s more keyed up than he should be from bare thrusting against something hard. Shiro is—changed, but he’s still all that Keith wants.

“Shiro,” he tries to moan, but can’t get the sound out right. Shiro gets the message. His eyes brighten, intent, and his hand moves faster, harder, almost too much. He keeps it up for minutes with a kind of manic focus, until he pulls release from Keith like a punch. He comes with a wordless gasp, the last of his air leaving him as Shiro’s hand clenches fast around his neck.

Keith bucks into his hold, bucks against his hand, trying to say Shiro's name, but there’s nothing left in him. Shiro works him through it, and beyond. He's oversensitive but the lack of air has his vision blinking out around the edges. He tries to move away from the grip, feeling something wet at the corners of his eyes and mouth.

He tries to say Shiro's name, pleading.

Shiro doesn’t stop. His eyes go dark, pupils blown wide, in something that looks like fascination. The hand around his throat goes tight and hot at that word. Keith doesn’t realize what’s happening until the violet light from the metal hand lights up Shiro’s eyes. There’s nothing human in them, nothing comprehending or kind. Keith tries to speak once more, but at the first syllable of Shiro’s name, the hand goes noose tight and white-hot, and all that’s left is terror.

The adrenaline that’s been chasing through is veins for weeks roars through him with renewed strength, extinguishing the remnant afterglow, but he’s pinned fast, and he can’t move, can’t get an inch. He convulses and writhes, scratching at Shiro’s arm, but the hand against his neck doesn’t twitch or yield a breath of space, and Shiro’s eyes are boring black holes into him—

No, not Shiro. It can’t be Shiro.

His strength flags after what feels like minutes, but can’t be more than a few seconds. His hands slip, his arms fall to the bed beside his head, but he can’t will them to rise, can’t think past the adrenaline that’s still telling him to do something, _anything_ , even as the edges of his vision flicker.

He feels it—he feels the moment his body stops.

Shiro leans down and his eyes go lantern-bright as Keith goes limp in his grip. That’s the last thing he sees before his world goes dark: bright, bright yellow eyes, and a smile he doesn’t know.

 

* * *

 

 

He wakes up in bed with the sheets tucked in tight around his shoulders, and foreboding pounding through his head—

Through his neck.

 _Fuck_.

Shiro isn’t in the room. There's an ache in chest, right over his sternum, and his arms and legs feel like they’ve been coated in lead. Shiro left his clothes folded in a neat pile by the bed—not where he dropped them. Keith’s hands shake, trying to pull them back on, trying to get out the door before Shiro gets back, before panic catches up with him in full. All he can see in his mind’s eye are yellow eyes, and all he can feel is his breath singing into his lungs with a wheeze.

He let this go too far, for far too long. Whatever was wrong—he should have confronted it weeks ago. He should have told someone. He should have done something. 

He flies out the door, dread dogging his heels. They can fix this, he tells himself. Somehow, they can fix this.

It’s too much.

He has to stop before he gets to the bridge, has to brace himself on the wall and swallow down the thing that’s trying to climb out of his throat. It hurts to breathe, and he’s breathing fast—too fast. _Patience,_ he thinks, and feels like he might throw up when the rest of the words Shiro taught him enter his mind.

The only thing that gets him up and moving again is the thought that Shiro might find him there, but he’s not sure which is worse: Shiro finding him there, and being worried, or Shiro finding him at all.

 

* * *

 

There’s something off with Keith when he walks in. Lance only notices because Lance is hyper-fixated on Keith. He knows this, and he’s trying to stop, but it's hard.

He comes in like a storm. He’s breathing hard and all his usual reservation is gone. His eyes are bright and there’s something else—

“What’s on your neck?” Lance reaches over and pulls back the high collar of Keith’s jacket as he walks by without thinking about it, trying to get a better view of the black mark peeking out above it.

Recognition hits like a physical blow. Lance feels the blood drain from his face. The entire room warps out of place in that moment, Pidge and Hunk’s conversation fading behind the buzz in his ears as his stomach rises into his throat.

It’s a raw bruise, unmistakably, and the shape of it...

Keith slips out of his grip and steps away, leaving Lance’s hand hanging in mid-air while he tries to reorient himself.

“It’s nothing,” Keith says, easy as that, but it’s not nothing—his voice is a wreck and he’s on the edge of hyperventilating. He won’t look at Lance. This is it, he realizes. This is the last brick crumbling out from under them. This is free fall and there’s no ground in sight.

He has to say something, but he can’t figure out what words to use for this.

“Did you let him do this?” Lance asks.

It’s not what he wanted to say, and it comes out louder than he meant it to, stopping the room cold—Keith most of all. He goes still and as bloodless as Lance suddenly is and gives a hoarse, disbelieving laugh. “What?”

“Did you want it?”

Keith doesn’t answer and doesn’t look at him. Lance takes his arm in a loose, deliberate hold, turning him so the mark is visible again. It’s worse at second glance—a handprint, bloody blue against his light skin. Something twists in his stomach when he tries to imagine the how of it and he pushes the thought away. Pidge and Hunk are sitting stock still in their seats across the room, wide-eyed and ready for whatever this shakes out to.

Keith doesn’t speak, but silence is enough of an answer.

Lance lets his hand fall. Keith doesn’t run from a fight—but it doesn’t matter; this isn’t going to be one.

He looks up, finally, and meets Lance’s gaze. There’s something wounded in his eyes. The persistent want that’s been biting at his heels for weeks surges up and Lance has the sudden, irrational urge to pull him into a hug, to feel that he’s solid and warm and ok despite this.

But it won't be wanted, and it won't help.

Keith closes his eyes and breathes.

“I think there’s something wrong,” he says, and his voice is tight and rough, like he's been sick for weeks and is trying to speak around something solid. The mark is worse when the skin under it is moving; Lance has to look away.

“I think there’s something wrong with Shiro.”

 

* * *

 

 

They never get the full story, and it’s a blessing. There’s a quick discussion, the bare facts. Where’s Shiro? Keith doesn't know. How long has it been like this? Since Shiro got back. Does he need anything? No, he says, but that’s the hardest part to hear.

Hunk pulls a bandage out of somewhere—it looks suspiciously like it might be a spare headband—and offers to wrap his neck. Keith shakes his head, but gives him a tiny smile, so at least there’s that.

“So, you were training? Did he just—snap?” Pidge asks. She and Hunk are still lost, and Lance doesn’t know how much of this they understand, but he’s not going to tell them the full breadth of it.

Keith looks away, nods. “There’s something wrong with him,” he repeats. That bald repetition is the first sign that maybe he’s not handling this as well as he’s pretending to. There are a hundred questions he wants to ask, but none of them are appropriate.

Hunk puts a hand on his shoulder, comforting, but Keith flinches away from it.

“Sorry,” Hunk offers, jerking his hand back, but Keith—

Keith’s looking at the door.

Shiro is standing there, on the threshold, watching them. He walks in like he hasn’t got a care in the world; it’s so deeply unsettling that Lance has to stop himself from flinching.

Coran steps in front of him. So far he's been a hovering but quiet presence. He doesn’t say a word, but Shiro stops.

He doesn't look at Coran. He doesn't have eyes for anyone but Keith.

“I was looking for you,” he says, whisper-sweet. “Are you alright?”

Keith doesn't look at him. His gaze is fastened to the floor—but somehow, he works up the courage to speak. “There's something wrong,” Keith says faintly, eyes still lowered.

Shiro takes a step forward. Coran lays a hand against his chest in warning, but Shiro doesn't try to press past him. He looks normal; everything in Lance wants to trust him, but the mark over Keith's bowed neck is too lurid, too shocking.

“Keith—" Shiro's mouth works for a moment before he frowns, and suddenly he's wrong. It's like seeing an optical illusion come to life—a painting that can be two opposite things. He's wearing Shiro’s image, but he’s using it in ways Shiro never did. The gleam in his eyes is out of sync with the worried twist of mouth. It's a strangeness Lance feels in his gut.

“ _Keith_ ,” he repeats, and this time the name comes out low and guttural. Inhuman in every way. 

Finally, Keith looks at him. The expression that breaks across his face isn't terror and it isn't sorrow. There's a moment of shock, a moment of horror, and then it's replaced by something worse. Anger, Lance thinks. This is Keith blind with rage and they've never seen that. All Lance's badgering never scratched the surface. He shoves past Lance and past Coran, the both of them taking a step back because it's clear Keith doesn't want their protection right now.

“Are you Shiro?” His voice cracks on the name.

Shiro reaches out to him palm-up, but Keith slaps his hand away. There's no getting between them; there never was. 

The thing wearing Shiro’s skin frowns, and then smiles wide and toothy. It’s an expression Shiro never wore—suddenly it’s laughable that they ever mistook him for what he wasn’t. The way his lips stretch the corners of his mouth is almost gleeful, but it doesn’t reach his eyes right, like some part of him is warring for control over his face.

And then it kneels in front of Keith and holds out both its hands. Lance has to fight the urge to look away. It's all too intimate in tandem with the mark around Keith’s neck and the edge of bruise on Keith’s hips that Lance is used to picking out at distance whenever he has the chance.

“You know me,” it says, tilting its head and letting it's gaze trail up and down Keith's body before it stares up at him like they’re the only two people in the room. It’s still grinning.

Lance knows exactly what it means, and so does Keith.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s pleading with him and Keith can’t see past the blood rushing in his ears.

“Keith, you _know_ me,” it repeats, almost laughing, almost like its surprised, almost like it’s mocking him. Yellow bleeds into its eyes from the pupil outward. It’s the same sickly light he’s seen at the other end of his blade in a dozen fights, right before the kill.

“You’re not Shiro.”

Keith’s voice is riding the edge of panic, and he’s trembling, because if this isn’t Shiro—it hasn’t been him, from the start, and he’s lost everything. It’s a second death, right there. Shiro is gone, still, and it’s been months. Every trail has gone cold and he’s been spending his nights with a stranger.

His neck aches. His hips ache. Months, he thinks again. He let this go on for _months_.

The blade is in his hand before he knows what he’s going to do with it.

“Wait, Keith—“  Lance says and puts out a hand, but Keith is past waiting for anything. It touched him, and it took from him: Shiro, and the memory of Shiro’s hands on him, and the sureness that he would know Shiro by touch and sound alone, the way he would never know another person.

He grabs it by the hair and bends its head back. It doesn’t fight, pressing its throat against the sharp edge of the knife instead. It blinks up at him, eyes flickering yellow. When it speaks, it’s in Shiro’s deep-soft voice, all innocence. “Are you going to kill me?”

Keith presses in the knife. “Where is he?” he asks, and he can’t stop his voice from shaking.

“I don’t know.”

It's not lying. He knows it well enough to know that.

“Do you know anything?” Keith asks, ragged. He’s bereft, he realizes, and he thought he knew what that felt like. He thought he’d memorized every edge of his grief twice over, but it was never this sharp. His stomach is hollow and his chest aches and still, _still_ the hair in his hands feels like Shiro’s and the neck against his knife bends like Shiro’s and if he closed his eyes, it could be him.

It shakes its head against the knife, smile turning apologetic. “Just you,” it says fondly.

He believes it, and that’s all he needs to hear.

 

* * *

 

The boy is beautiful.

That’s what he remembers first, and last. The glitter of his eyes in a desert sunrise, and those long legs sweat-damp and strong around his waist, pulling him in and _in._ The way his hair whips around his face in a fight, motions too smooth and fast to keep track of. The little sounds he makes, and what they feel like under his hands.

The boy is beautiful, even at the end—at the end more than any other time because this is for _him._ Shiro never saw the boy like this, and he never will.

“You can do it,” he says to the boy, and hears the echoing warp of quintessence in his voice, sees it reflected in their flinching horror. The boy doesn’t twitch, the knife against his neck cutting a still line above his pulse. It stings in the best way.

He’s going to die there, under that gaze, he knows suddenly. It’s all he wanted. Since he woke up on that table, in that tank, lights in his eyes and the taste of the boy on the tip of his tongue—Shiro’s tongue, in memory.

“Why?” the boy asks, voice cracking on that one word.

He laughs, and it pushes the blade deeper. “Because he loves you.” The knife twitches in the boy’s hand, and it’s on the edge of lethal now, a solid line of blood flowing down in his neck, dripping down his bare chest.

He licks his lips, trying to remember the taste of him, and whispers, “Because I wanted to.”

The boy’s eyes go wide again, and bright, and he’s beautiful. The boy is so beautiful _._

That’s the last thing he sees. It’s everything he wanted.


End file.
